We love those moments on The Vampire Diaries that make us gasp, pause, and rewind — and “ The Hybrid,” was chock full of them. Here are the five scenes that left us with our jaws agape during Season 3, Episode 2.

5. Matt and Jeremy have a Ghost moment You know what they say: Seeing is believing. Matt did not think his sister’s spirit was visiting Jeremy until he saw a framed photo of the siblings move on the table. It also helped that Vicki appeared to Jeremy while Matt was in the room. “Is Vicki here?” Matt asked. Jer nodded. Then Matt’s sis let her purpose be known. “I can come back,” she said. “Help me come back.” Then the window broke. A second later Jeremy’s other vampire ex, Anna, appeared. “Don’t trust Vicki,” she warned. And the conundrum begins.

4. Tylermakes the mayor watch On the subject of Tyler’s new vampire girlfriend, Mayor Lockwood was clear. “You can’t be with her,” she said of Caroline. “She’s a monster.” That last word echoed nastily in Ty’s ears. Monster. “You don’t know about me, do you?” Tyler asked his mom. She offered only a blank stare, so he dragged Carol through the woods to the dungeon of the old Lockwood mansion. Grunting and stuttering as he fought the transformation, Tyler locked her in one cage and chained himself up in the other. Then his mother watched, wide-eyed, as her son became a beast. Who’s the monster now, Mom?

3. Elena and Damon share an (ahem) moment You know Elena. The threat of a bloody, painful death is not enough to keep her from charging up a mountain filled with vamp-were hybrids. But this time, something more than fear made E want to run from the fight. And Damon needed her to admit what that was. Vamping, as he tends to do, into Elena’s boudoir at bedtime, the sexy Salvatore refused to let the topic die. “What made you change your mind?” he asked repeatedly. “What?”

Elena tried to dodge the subject, blaming first the attack then “danger.” Finally, she gave in. “I didn’t want to see you get hurt, okay? I was — I was worried about you.” Smirking, Damon accepted that crack in her emotional armor. “Thanks.” “Yes, I worry about you. Why do you have to hear me say it?” Elena continued. Damon took the last word. “Because when I drag my brother from the edge and deliver him back to you, I want you to remember the things you felt while he was gone,” he said. He held Elena’s face and caressed her hair, leaning in for an almost kiss. And then he was gone.

2. Klaus accepts momentary defeat Early in the day, the most evil of the original vampires was full cocky and full of bravado. When Stefan dared to question the loyalty of the hybrids Klaus was so rapidly making, the O.V. even lectured him. “It’s not difficult to be loyal when you’re on the winning team,” he said. “That’s something you’ll learn once you shake that horribly depressive chip off your shoulder.”

Flash forward a few hours and Klaus was feeling everything but victorious. The ancient bloodsucker stood alone in the center of a circle of werewolves who were waking up. On his right, the she-wolf whose neck he’d broken eyed him menacingly as blood streamed from her tear ducts. On his left, one of her pack members approached. Klaus had a choice: He could wait until they tried to eat him or he could off them all before they had a chance to gather their wits. He chose the latter.

Minutes later, standing in the field of corpses that comprised his failed experiment, Klaus was forced to admit that something went wrong. “I did everything they told me to do,” he said. Or so he thought.

1. Caroline’s father comes to (possibly) kill her This moment was killer. When a drugged Caroline finally came to, she found herself chained to a chair that was bolted to the floor of one of the many dungeons buried beneath the streets of Mystic Falls. She called out of her captor, Mayor Lockwood. “Hello? Mrs. Lockwood? Are you there?” Her cries were met with silence. Then the slayer known only as “Bill” walked through the door. Caroline looked up and paused — confused. “Daddy?” she asked. Bill’s response was haunting. He said only, “Hello, Caroline.”